


broken mirrors

by GuardianKarenTerrier



Series: running out of luck [2]
Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Actual Cat Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir, Dysphoria, Found Family, Gen, Nonbinary Alya Césaire, Rated for cursing, discussion of abuse, essentially a 'behind the scenes/outtakes' fic for what worse luck, i will be adding tags with additional updates, trans alya cesaire
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-04
Updated: 2019-12-13
Packaged: 2021-02-26 03:42:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,263
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21666865
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GuardianKarenTerrier/pseuds/GuardianKarenTerrier
Summary: A collection of deleted or extended scenes from What Worse Luck, since I realised I was ending up with quite a few of them.
Series: running out of luck [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1562017
Comments: 80
Kudos: 313





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> these are deleted/extended scenes from What Worse Luck; they are absolutely not going to make sense without reading that first. 
> 
> this first one is in between chapters seven and eight of luck, when adriens outside on marinettes balcony recovering from a panic attack- and everyone else is still inside. 
> 
> NOTE: THESE ARE NOT CANONICAL TO THE MAIN FIC, characters learn things at different times in these- these are things i wrote more for myself to get a handle on how the other characters were feeling and reacting. 
> 
> rated for quite a lot of cursing, especially on alya's part.

It's a good thing that Nino takes Adrien upstairs so quickly, because Alya is visibly repressing their reaction. 

They're also visibly having quite a lot of difficulty doing so. 

Alya's furious pacing takes them into the kitchen, at least, which is about as far as they can get from Marinette's balcony without moving into the bakery itself. 

The bakery is closed while their parents are away and Marinette has mixed feelings about showing Adrien around it. It's her family's bakery and she's very proud of it, but Adrien can't eat anything in it now. That might be far too much a reminder that he's trapped in a form he didn't choose and doesn't want. 

Adrien isn't Plagg. Adrien so obviously doesn't _want_ to be a cat, and Marinette could tell even from the single spell they cast for his claws how deep his curse runs. It's so much more entrenched than Plagg's that she's not sure she can even tell his curse and his magic apart. She'd be willing to try, but she doesn't think she can break it. She wouldn't know where to _start_. 

And she wouldn't want to hurt him. She's so afraid of how easy it would be to hurt him, if she went anywhere near his curse right now. 

Marinette and Nino have grown up with Plagg in their lives. He and Tikki have always been there, have always been effectively a second set of parents to them both, and so they both know feline body language as well as they do human. 

Adrien is far too obviously _terrified_ of magic. 

Marinette is honestly surprised that he'd ever agreed to let her cast on him at all, especially given that he'd only just met her, because the fearful way he'd backed himself all the way under the chaise lounge with all his fur on end and his tail lashing haunts her even now. If he'd had claws then she's sure he'd have been leaving furrows in the carpet out of sheer unbridled anxiety. 

She still can't believe he'd been declawed at all. For one thing, even a curse shouldn't be able to _do_ that, and she'd half-feared someone had taken him to an actual vet and had it done to him. Ethical implications aside, she can't imagine how traumatizing it would be for Adrien to be taken to an animal hospital and treated wholly as a pet. 

He hadn't been able to tell her he was human without Plagg and Nino's help, after all. Wildspeech is uncommon enough that it's not standard at veterinary hospitals, as much as they've tried to push for it to be. There simply aren't _enough_ people with the ability to fill the positions, and a lot of them, Nino included, don't have the disposition to work in a hospital setting. All Adrien's family would have had to do is find a clinic without a Wildspeaker and Adrien likely would have been treated like any other cat. 

Marinette hates that she _still_ can't rule out that having happened. Adrien is starting to clam up more already as he realises by their reactions that the things he's saying aren't _normal_ , that what happened to him _shouldn't_ have happened, and she doesn't think that's information he's likely to volunteer. 

There's also the fact that a declawed cat, especially one who has no real experience with their remaining claws- and, by some of Nino's upset muttering, who'd been conditioned not to bite- is _defenceless_. 

And Marinette is very, very certain that they'd wanted Adrien to feel defenceless. 

Alya's not even saying anything coherent at this point, just pacing and cursing under their breath, and Marinette's glad for the distance between them and Adrien. She has no idea what Adrien's hearing is really like. He did say it's better as a cat, though, and she knows that Plagg can hear them from nearly anywhere in the house. 

When Nino joins them he looks as unhappy as Marinette's ever seen him, and that includes the time their hamster died when they were seven. "He, uh. I dunno how long he's gonna be, but he wanted to say sorry for getting your shirt dirty, Alya." 

Alya's cursing doesn't pause. If anything, it increases in variety and volume. There are curses in there Marinette doesn't _know_. 

Nino clears his throat. "Um. He, he also wanted me to, uh..." Nino stops and takes a deep breath. He passes one hand across his eyes and Marinette notices with increasing alarm that her brother's shaking. 

She steps closer to him, knocking their shoulders together. "Nino, what is it?" 

"He wanted me to thank you for giving him a name, Marinette," Nino says softly, shutting his eyes and letting out another long exhale before opening them again. "Apparently no one's actually been calling him by name for a really long time. I don't- I don't think they really talked to him much at all, to be honest. _At_ him, maybe, but even that..." Nino trails off, rubbing at his forehead. "He's... _really_ bad off, Mar." 

Marinette drops into a chair at the kitchen table with a sigh of her own, waving Alya down after her. "Nino... I know there's things you can't tell us, but is there anything specific you can warn us to avoid?"

"No calming spells," Nino says immediately, and the way he looks ill as he says it makes Marinette's stomach roil in turn. "Not _ever_. I know they can be a help with panic attacks, and his are... bad, but, please, Marinette. _Don't_ use them." 

"I won't," Marinette promises, a little hastily, because Nino looks more upset the longer he thinks about that. As well he might- she can only think of a very few reasons Adrien would have bad associations with calming spells, and all of them are enough to make her very, very angry with whoever's been using them on him. 

Because Adrien wouldn't have agreed to them. Even after barely a day and a half, Marinette is more than sure of that. Adrien doesn't _like_ magic, and that's strange enough in someone with so _much_ of it. For him to have any kind of issue with a spell meant only to be used to calm someone down in an emergency is... worrying. 

"Anything else?" Alya asks, and their voice has gone to that strange between-tones pitch that means they're _really_ angry. "Nino, we still don't know what upset him so badly the first time. We don't- we don't know how to _avoid_ scaring him, and fuck, he's terrified enough." They kick the counter, frustrated beyond words for a moment. "Fucking hell. It's shitty not to feel like yourself, it's gotta be so much worse to be stuck as the wrong _species_." 

Suddenly, the reason for Alya's anger is much clearer. 

Marinette has never been entirely sure how much dysphoria Alya really experiences. It's not something Marinette has ever felt comfortable enough to ask about, and while it's possible that Nino _does_ know Marinette isn't going to abuse the trust between herself and her twin to find that information out. 

Marinette's done enough research to know that her nonbinary friend is more likely to have experience with gender euphoria rather than dysphoria, and Alya has had their illusions nearly all their life besides. It's as easy as a snap of their fingers for Alya to change their appearance to anything they like. Because of that they're usually androgynous, although there are rare occasions where Alya will abruptly decided to wear clothes and illusions that emphasize their chest. Marinette has learned not to ask about those because it inevitably means that Alya is extremely testy about something. 

Marinette wouldn't be surprised to see Alya doing that right now, because they're angrier than Marinette has ever seen them. 

"Nino," Alya says, clearly struggling to bring their voice back into their preferred register. "Nino, I heard you say- he panicked worse when you said something about protecting him." 

"Keeping him safe, I don't know if that specific wording had anything to do with it, but it was about keeping him safe," Nino clarifies. 

Plagg must be done with whatever he's doing to the wards, because he comes strolling in and jumps up next to Nino, letting out a loud series of meows that makes Nino wince. 

"Nino?" Marinette says, uneasily. 

"No," Nino tells Plagg flatly. "He doesn't want them to know about that. He didn't want _me_ to know that, Plagg, and you know he only told you because he assumed-" Nino winces again. "Because he assumed it'd happened to you, too." 

Plagg hisses. 

"Plagg, come on," Nino replies. He sounds increasingly agitated. "The poor dude has _nothing_ and he asked me not to say anything." 

"Nino," Alya says. Their voice is still struggling to settle in one register, but they manage to sound low and dangerous all the same. "This is something we _should_ know, though. Isn't it." 

It's not a question, not the way they're half-growling by the end. 

It's always weirded Marinette out a little that for all Plagg is one of her and Nino's guardians, it's always been _Alya_ who's the wildest out of them all. 

Plagg's made his approval clear from the start, and he definitely encourages Alya's oddly feral tendencies, but Marinette has _met_ Alya's family and there is no reason they should be like this. It's true that _Trixx_ is more than a little eccentric and wild but Alya hadn't met Trixx until they were a lot older. Alya seems to have started going feral all on their own, no outside influences necessary, and Marinette kind of dreads having to someday spend time out somewhere in the wilderness with them. She's not entirely certain that Alya would come back, and she knows Nino would follow them, and Marinette would follow Nino, and there's an entire chain reaction there that she doesn't particularly want to explore. 

Nino relents enough to translate for Plagg, finally, but he sounds tired and frustrated even as he faithfully repeats Plagg's angry muttering. "Yeah, you should know. The kid got freaked out by all the cat stuff, he's been trapped in that house and as far as we can tell they _didn't_ treat him like he was human, at all. I'm not sure how much he really realises it but it sounds like they were treating him more like a pet even when he _wasn't_ transformed. And when he _was_ transformed- he asked us about cat carriers, if that gives you any idea. And then almost immediately had a panic attack." 

Now Marinette feels as ill as Nino looks. 

"They locked him in a fucking cage, you mean," Alya snarls, swiping a box of Kleenex clear off the counter in a habit they've picked up off of Plagg. "Fuck. Like he wouldn't already feel trapped enough, they had to cage him too?" They turn around so fast that Marinette almost startles backwards. "Mari, you're positive you got all the leash spells off for good, right?" 

"Positive," Marinette confirms, eyeing them with worry. She almost says something about the collar and tag spells, too, but she catches herself in time. So far Nino and Alya haven't thought too hard about those. Marinette is hoping that they don't, because Adrien hasn't actually told them who he is, and Marinette's not going to admit to anything unless or until he does. "Are _you_ okay, Alya?" 

"No!" Alya rakes one hand through their hair, leaving it snarled behind them with the force of their swipe. "No, I'm fucking furious _and_ I'm afraid if I show anything while Adrien's around he's gonna think I'm furious _at him_. Fuck!" 

Nino finally sits down too, collapsing into a chair with a groan. "Yeah, he would, too." 

Plagg sets his head on his paws and grumbles.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> happy friday the 13th have ALL THE ANGST, have a ninos pov! 
> 
> i am not actually sure when this one takes place, because i am not actually sure that there IS any place in the main fic where it can realistically take place. its a vague 'at night sometime.'

"Alya," Nino says, rolling over and finding that he has much more space in his bed than he expected. 

That's because Alya is already up and moving around the room, pulling clothes out of his dresser drawers and tossing the ones they want over their shoulder. 

That's worrying. 

Alya doesn't normally care about their clothes, not when they can change what they're wearing with barely a whisper of effort. 

Nino levers himself up on one elbow, watching his partner tear around the room, obviously changing their mind repeatedly. Alya only takes _his_ clothes if they want the reassurance of having something of Nino's with them. There was a time in the past where it had been a fairly common thing for them to do, but that was years ago. This is strange behaviour for Alya now. "Alya, you okay?" 

Alya stops in the middle of the room. Nino half expects them to be breathing hard, when they're this clearly upset, but instead they've gone very stiff and still. 

" _Alya_ ," Nino repeats, increasingly concerned. 

Alya takes a deep breath but doesn't turn to face him. "It's- fine. I'm fine. Go back to sleep, babe, it's nothing. I just have to go- do something." 

"Do you want me to come with?" Nino asks, already swinging himself out of bed. "I can be ready in ten minutes. Shit, if you're really in a hurry, I don't care if you just throw an illusion on me." It wouldn't be the first time. Nino doesn't mind Alya's illusions. Running with them and Plagg and Marinette when they're out rat-chasing is a bit beyond Nino, ever since he'd gained Wildspeech and the ability to hear the rat's protests, but he's never minded one bit about the illusions themselves. 

"No, really, it's okay." Alya sighs. "It's not- I just want to go get some books. From Trixx's place, if I have to." 

"Libraries are a thing, you know," Nino points out. He's pulling out a shirt to change into as he talks. "So are bookstores. And, like, the internet, Alya, why are we really going?" 

Alya starts to say something, stops, and then throws themself onto Nino's bed with a groan. 

Nino doesn't stop getting dressed, just in case. It's true that Alya can just throw illusions over them both if they do end up leaving in a hurry but he still wants Alya to know he's more than willing to help. 

"There are _specific_ books I want to get from Trixx," Alya says, slowly. Their voice is quieter than usual and Nino hides his wince when he realises they're not paying the kind of attention to their pitch that they normally do. "Books that- books Trixx shared with me, when I was still realising- come on, Nino, you remember when I stayed with Trixx for like three weeks, right?" 

"Yeah." Nino sits down on the bed, fully dressed now, and leans into Alya. "You didn't come back to school that year. We weren't sure what happened, at first, you were _barely_ answering me and Marinette." 

Alya snorts. "Babe, I was _only_ answering you and Marinette. Anansi's the only one who knew where me and Trixx were, that was when I was taking _my_ test- and figuring out my pronouns, remember?" 

"Yeah, I just don't get what it has to do with right _now_. Everyone here's pretty sure of what they-" Nino stops. 

"Sure," Alya says. "Everyone is. But everyone doesn't get to _feel_ like it, do they?" 

"Alya." Nino wraps an arm around them. "I know, but- we're trying, you know we're trying. Plagg doesn't think even Tikki can break his curse. I don't think- I don't think Adrien really believes he's ever gonna get to look human again." 

"I'm not sure he gets that he _is_ still human, no matter what he looks like." Alya reaches up and covers their face with both hands. "Nino, I don't know how to help. I _should_ know." 

"It's a little different," Nino says, gently. 

"You know... it's more similar than you would think." Alya sighs. "I get it, okay, I _know_ it's not the same but... I had you, and Anansi, and Marinette, and Trixx. Shit, even Chloe, if you want to count that." 

Nino snorts. "I'm not over that." 

"Hey, she's got flaws, but you have to admit- using my pronouns before _I_ knew them sure made a difference." Alya shrugs. "Don't think everyone else woulda gone with that so quickly if she hadn't already been doing it."

"They might have. We had a good class. We were lucky, really, having the classmates we did." Nino flops over onto the bed, dragging Alya down with him. Alya sighs and shifts to put their head on his chest. "We were a lot luckier than I think we ever realised. I just- Alya, you should have heard him asking me about our class. He sounded so-" Nino sighs this time. "I think he'd have given anything to go at all, I felt so bad." 

Restless as ever, Alya rolls over, crossing their arms across Nino's chest this time. "Nino... I _can't_ hear him. He thought that _no one_ could hear him, he didn't even know Wildspeech was a thing. They didn't _tell_ him about it." They shut their eyes. "And he still ran away. Because he still thought that was the better option. I- babe, I can _tell_ that he _wants_ to talk to us, he- he _doesn't want this_." 

Nino stares at the ceiling for a long moment before blinking hard. He- he can't tell Alya about some of the other things he's heard from Adrien, things Adrien clearly hadn't _meant_ to let slip around Nino or Plagg or both. Plagg seems perfectly willing to repeat Adrien's secrets whenever he thinks it's important that he does but- 

Nino isn't sure that Adrien has ever had anyone he could trust before. 

Adrien's been declawed and muzzled and caged and starved and he _still_ stumbles through conversations where he's trying so hard to defend his father's actions. And Nino can't tell if Adrien is stumbling through those conversations because he knows he's lying to himself, or- well. 

Adrien doesn't know how to talk to people. 

Nino doesn't think that he's ever had a chance to learn. 

Nino knows what it's like to have a panic attack, and Adrien so obviously didn't know what they were, and he's still so fearful and anxious and Nino knows that panic attacks don't always have logical triggers, but. 

But Plagg had noticed right away how nervous his cat toys and trees had made Adrien. 

But Adrien had dropped from anxious into a full blown panic attack over getting a gift. 

(There's a reaction that haunts Nino still. What _happened_ to their friend, that he thought that- that they would _force_ him to stay with- 

-but Nino knows the answer to that, too). 

"I'm so fucking glad he'd gotten into Marinette's spell range," Nino mutters, throwing one arm over his eyes and nearly clocking Alya. "We never would have known, Alya, no one would have known. He'd just have kept- kept trying to run, and getting caught, and- getting abused." 

Alya winces. 

"Yeah, I know." Nino winces too. "I don't- think he's ready to hear that yet. He's still trying to defend his dad whenever it comes up. Alya I don't _care_ what the dude's motives were, he- I can't believe what he did to Adrien. I want his dad in _jail_." 

"Babe, you're preaching to the choir. And, uh, Trixx's books." Alya coughs. "They're not- Trixx has some books about dysphoria, all right? Good ones. Ones with content that's kinda hard to find. They helped _me_ , they could help Adrien." 

Nino doesn't answer for a good few minutes. He waits for Alya to draw conclusions on their own. 

When Alya doesn't continue, though, Nino finally says, "Alya. He can't read them." 

"So what!" Alya throws their arms up and rolls back off Nino and then off the bed entirely, thumping to the floor before springing upright. "So I read them _to_ him. It's not the kind of privacy I wish he could have, but come on, it's better than just _ignoring_ the damn problem. It's not like we can take him to therapy!" Alya goes quiet for a moment, before adding in a much softer voice, "It's not like we can take him anywhere. His fucking family made sure of that." 

Nino has no response for that. 

At least, not one that he can say out loud. 

(Nino is not prone to nightmares. He never has been. 

But recently he's been dreaming of being trapped in small spaces, left where no one would ever find him. 

At least for Nino it's only a nightmare). 

Nino hasn't so much as closed a single door in the house in a week, he's too aware that Adrien can't open a closed door. True, they all have cat flaps and if Plagg isn't already teaching Adrien that their door handles _can_ be turned with paws he will be soon, but Nino still can't make himself shut any doors. His window has been open for days even though Adrien is rarely even _in_ his room. 

As far as he can tell all Adrien really wants is friends and a chance to be human. That's _all_ that Adrien seems to want, and he's already proven willing to trade _human_ for _friends._

And they hadn't let him have that. 

Adrien has assured Nino that he's mostly stayed human, that as long as he was on the property and his dad had remembered to cancel the curse he was himself, but that's- 

There are so many red flags in that assurance but Adrien doesn't seem _aware_ of them. Or- at least not consciously. 

(" _Remembered_ to-?" Nino had asked, horrified. 

Adrien hadn't met his eyes, studying his paws instead as he said, "Well, he- he's very busy. His schedule is- he's just- he doesn't have a lot of free time, that's all.") 

You're his _only son_ and you _hate_ being trapped like this, Nino had wanted to say, but- Adrien had already had a panic attack earlier that day, and Plagg's _still_ off somewhere stalking room to room with his tail held stiff and a growl rumbling in his throat because the older cat is _furious_ but _not at Adrien_ , and Adrien has a really hard time believing that their anger isn't directed at him. 

Nino has known people besides himself who have panic attacks. He knows they're not uncommon. 

He knows that Adrien's are far more frequent than anyone else he's ever met, and that Adrien's anxiety makes Nino's look inconsequential. There's- Nino isn't going to say anything, because he thinks that Adrien is still ashamed of having panic attacks at all, but there's something _wrong_ about Adrien's. The frequency and intensity makes Nino think uneasily of when he'd first gone to get medication, about _why_ he has medication-

He'd asked Tikki about calming spells. Tikki had said no, and had then asked him to go get Marinette, and then had sat them both down to explain. 

Magic can't manipulate emotions, not truly. Any spell that tries to or promises to only _suppresses_ them and that leaves a price to pay later. Unlike medication, calming spells have been impossible to test properly or to regulate, and it's only through anecdotes that anyone has any idea how they work at all. They _aren't safe._ They're classified as emergency spells for a reason. 

It sounded like they'd been casting them on Adrien whenever they cast at all. Adrien hadn't even known what they were _called_ , they so clearly hadn't asked him or explained anything. 

And- Plagg has been around for all of Nino and Marinette's lives. Nino knows him just as well as he does the rest of his parents, has talked with him since he was a child, and he's asked Plagg half a hundred questions about every topic he could think of. Plagg has always been surprisingly indulgent, and he'd been very obviously smugly pleased when Nino had gotten Wildspeech- he almost _always_ answers Nino's questions. 

Curses hurt. 

Not always, and not all of the time, but forcing a shift into another form- that hurts. Plagg has assured him that pain doesn't last, but Plagg doesn't have anyone forcing him to shift back and forth. Plagg's stayed in his preferred form for- it must have been decades, at least. How old he and Tikki actually are is a question he _won't_ answer. 

And people casting _on_ a curse, especially if they don't know what they're doing, _hurts_. It's not a surprise that Adrien's been so scared of magic. All of their own experiences with it have been positive- but it sounds like all of Adrien's have been full of pain and terror. 

Nino is still keeping the muzzle and cage between himself, Adrien, and Plagg. Nino's never going to look at a cat carrier or muzzle again without feeling sick. 

Adrien had tried to _defend_ that. 

Nino doesn't care _who_ his friend's dad is, if he ever comes for Adrien, Nino will fight him fang and claw. Nino may have chosen not to learn any offensive magic from Plagg or Tikki but the thing about that is, most witches and even most familiars don't expect their opponent to pick up a vase and clock them over the head with it, and Mom had made absolutely certain that Nino and Marinette had both learned some more mundane methods of offence and defence as well. Anansi had taught Alya long before they started spending so much time at the bakery, but Mom had insisted on teaching them, too, as soon as she realised Alya was around to stay. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i wanted to post the next chapter of luck today, but life was rough for a couple days and i did not get to the stopping point i wanted, so.


End file.
